


now we're safe ashore, jack

by yewgrove



Category: Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Genre: Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Age of Sail, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Historical, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Sharing a Bed, algie and teddy are mentioned but they do not make an appearance, but like. within the span of 24 hours, ghost-free, jack 'complete emotional turnaround in 30 seconds' miller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yewgrove/pseuds/yewgrove
Summary: Gus Balfour is fleeing the country. It's an inconvenience to everyone that he's attempting to do so via the ship on which Jack Miller works.
Relationships: Gus Balfour/Jack Miller
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	now we're safe ashore, jack

**Author's Note:**

> this is only 'historical' to the extent of my knowledge, which is limited as regards early 1800s merchant seafaring routes, the history of the dover-calais packet, anglo-french trade relations in 1818, what a boatswain is supposed to spend their time doing when they're not gay pining, or what in the world a square-rigged mast is. i know nothing. please forgive inaccuracies.
> 
> warnings for a brief dash of period-typical systemic homophobia
> 
> written for aconissa for the 2019 dark matter exchange!

_Dover, 1818_

In another life — maybe even at a different point in this one — the pair of handsome men joining Jack at his tavern table might even have been welcome. As it stood, they were proving to be a decided annoyance. 

He had no idea who they were, and didn't much want to ask, but they weren't showing signs of leaving. One of them was dark, sharp-looking, with an air of being someone it would be safest to keep an eye on. Keeping an eye on him would have worked better if the other of the two hadn’t been distracting. Jack was convinced that the man’s hair was giving off more light than the weary candles of the dockside pub, and he was carrying himself with an easy set to his shoulders that bespoke a lifetime of being entitled to take up space wherever he found himself, notwithstanding the light furrow to his brow. They were both dressed in dark clothes, clearly expensive, and equally clearly chosen in a clueless attempt at blending in, which given the squalour-tinged surroundings would have been doomed to failure even if the radiance of the blonde one hadn't made the prospect of him blending in anywhere nearly impossible.

They had sat down next to him, the dark one with an eyebrow twitch that Jack had decided to be offended by, the golden one with a smile, and had offered him a drink.

'No, thank you,' Jack's pride had said, and then the golden one had given him a comprehensive look of entreaty, and the dark one had told him Not to Be Like That and had bought the round over Jack's attempts at protest, and here they were. Glaring at people of wealth and rank was a dangerous habit, so Jack glared into his mug by way of proxy, and waited for his companions to explain themselves.

'Cheers,' said the golden one. 'Or, here, to new acquaintances, how's that.' Jack, having no desire for new acquaintances, twitched visibly, and the golden one propelled himself onwards with a slightly guilty air. 'Apologies for being so forward, Jack, really, but we're hoping you could help us.'

Which tipped the conversation from _innocuously inconvenient_ to _threatening_ almost instantly.

'How do you know my name?' Jack's hackles were now definitively up.

'Mr Miller, I should say,' the golden one continued quickly. The fact that he knew Jack’s surname as well did not, in fact, improve the situation.

'You're aboard the _Isbjørn_ ,' said the dark one. 'Sailing for France tomorrow morning. We — well, Gus here, I'm not such an idiot as to want to go to France — require passage.'

'Be polite, Hugo,' said the golden one — Gus, apparently — with a pacifying, smoothing-the-waters air. 'Besides, aren't your family French?'

'Nobody's family is French these days. It would be a national scandal. Which, you'll recall, is not my purview.'

Golden Gus gave a sigh, apparently giving his friend up as a lost cause, and revolved back to Jack, offering his hand. Jack, after a moment, took it.

'Gus Baxter,' his new acquaintance said. 'Hugo's demeanour leaves something to be desired, but he's correct in essentials. I'm looking to charter passage to France, as soon as possible. Someone at the docks gave us your name as boatswain of a ship sailing tomorrow, so here we are. At your feet, as it were.'

'The _Isbjørn_ isn't a passenger ship,' Jack told them, since it was the easiest of his objections to articulate. It was a lie, technically, since Bjørvik was aboard for no discernable purpose other than to keep the captain company, but as far as Jack was concerned, he was the exception that proved the rule.

'We can pay, of course,' Gus said. 'If that was a concern.'

Money was constantly a concern for Jack. He found himself hating, deeply, this ray of wealthy sunshine for whom it could be an afterthought.

'Why?' he asked.

'Why passage, you mean?' Gus frowned, but it wasn't a frown at Jack, rather a thoughtful one into the distance.

'Business,' Hugo said.

'Can I ask what business you're in, and why it requires the use of the _Isbjørn_?'

'Oh, just family affairs,' said Gus, with a weak air of nonchalance. 'My parents trying to make something of me. I confess I don't know the details. I was supposed to leave last week, but the travel arrangements were an awful bore. I missed the boat, and I'm expected, so best hurry, what?'

'There's no room aboard for passengers, and particularly not the kind of room I'd assume you're accustomed to,' Jack said. 'And I doubt you're interested in hiring on as crew.' The hand he had shaken had been soft, uncalloused, as different from Jack's skin as silk from canvas.

The two exchanged glances. 'If it would get me aboard,' Gus began.

'Don't be an idiot, Gus.'

'I'm willing to work, of course.' There was a fearsome glint in Gus's eye, the look of a man who had read too much poetry, or too many stories of naval heroism during the wars, and who was ready to take a jolly good stab at romanticising life at sea. He'd probably grown up with accounts of Trafalgar. Didn't help that he looked the part of the gleaming naval hero. The pre-cannonfire hero, at least.

'We're not currently taking on crew,' Jack told him. 'Sorry, Mr...' He waited.

'Ah. Baxter,' Gus filled in, helpfully, and a few seconds late. 'You're absolutely certain?'

'Absolutely.' Jack pushed his untouched mug away, trying his hardest to convey the fact that he was leaving the table. Unfortunately, the two of them were still sitting in his way.

Hugo gave a grimace. 'Look, man, I don't think you quite understand. We're offering to pay for the passage. And if you've got other expenses, or to cover the inconvenience —’

The bribery attempt would have been funny if it hadn't been offensive. 'I'm afraid not,' said Jack shortly, and stood up. 'This conversation is over, gentlemen.'

Gus's hand shot out to brush his wrist, surprising. 'Can I at least ask that you don't repeat our conversation to anyone?' This was, nominally, a plea, but it came out with the incontrovertible authority of someone accustomed to giving orders.

Whatever the man whose name was definitely not Baxter was mixed up in, Jack wanted nothing to do with it. That said, he didn't seem harmful, per se, any more than the upper classes in general were, and agreeing seemed the shortest end to the conversation. 'Whatever you say.'

'Thank you,' Gus said. The grip of his eyes was something more physical than even the touch of his hand had been. Jack shook himself loose of it, and headed for the door of the tavern, ignoring the noise behind him as Gus attempted to stifle Hugo's offended noblesse.

Not the most successful encounter Jack could have imagined with a pair of pretty eyes in a tavern, he reflected, as the door creaked closed behind him. With any luck, however, that would be the last of it. If the man's damned expression would get out of his head.

***

'Well,' said Hugo educatedly, as the door closed behind Jack Miller. 'Fuck.'

Gus gave a little eyebrow raise at the profanity, but didn't deny it.

'Not exactly a helpful chap, Mr Miller,' Hugo was elaborating. 'I'm inclined to wonder if he knows about you. And he wouldn't take the money. Aren't the lower classes supposed to be morally weak-willed?'

'I don't think I'm in a position to comment on that,' Gus said. The beer they were drinking wasn't the worst he'd ever had, quite. He pulled Jack Miller's untouched mug towards himself, and took a long sip. It didn't help. 'He shouldn't. Know, I mean.' The idea hadn't even touched him until Hugo had mentioned it, damn him, and now a new sour layer of nervousness was added to the back of his throat. 'It was only in the London papers yesterday, it shouldn't have made it to Dover yet.'

'Not that it's much comfort, since he clearly isn't inclined to welcome you aboard his ship. Maybe he's a revolutionary. He had a Jacobin sort of look about him. The ingratitude of the masses.'

Gus tried not to be unjust to his friends; a lifetime of growing up with Algie would instill that habit in you, but Hugo's conversation was difficult at the best of times, let alone the worst bloody time of Gus's life. He buried the heels of his hands against his eyelids, losing himself in the bursting darkness.

'So long as he's not off to denounce you,' Hugo said grimly. 'I can make him pay for it if he does, but it doesn't settle the problem of how to get you out of the country.'

'The _Isbjørn_ was the only ship leaving for Calais for at least two days. The packet doesn’t leave until Saturday.' Gus raised his head, because speaking through his hands didn't seem dignified, and he owed Hugo a show of strength at least. 'I don't suppose I _could_ ship on as a sailor.'

'I say this with all the fondness in the world, dear fellow: they wouldn't have you. Even regardless of the fact that I'm sure our dear Mr Miller has something to say about who crews his vessel.' Gus' face must not have been as successfully stiff-upper-lipped as he had been aiming for, because Hugo gave a short sigh, a clipped rush through his nose. 'Buck up. We will work something out.'

The absolute worst thing, in the entire overwhelming scandal of being denounced for unnatural offences, had been the fear of how his friends would react. Not Algie, obviously; they'd been at school together, which meant that despite Algie's wife and despite his occasional cruelties or crass remarks in private, loyalty to Gus still came up higher than loyalty to the law in whatever dictated his personal worldview. Right or wrong, it wouldn't do for anything so lower class as the police to get in the way of their sort doing as they jolly well pleased. Algie thought he was 'all right really', or at least so he had articulated in their only open, stumbling conversation about it, over five years ago now. That said, it was Hugo to whom Algie had handed over the task of dealing with him, when Gus had been burying his head in his hands in a corner of Algie's sitting room because his parents had let him know in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome back at their house. Algie had patted him on the shoulder, a little bit self-consciously, and had told him that everything would be alright. Then he'd left the room, and the next thing the door had produced had been Hugo.

It had been one of the worst moments of Gus's life, seeing his friend walk into Algie's sitting room. He'd been frowning, his intense, severe expression at the pinnacle of its intense severity, and Gus had been convinced that he was about to be subjected to a furious, offended renouncement of their friendship. Then Hugo had crossed his arms, and said, 'Well, really, Gus, you might have told me. I had to hear it from Algie of all people, and hearing Algie try to talk about the Greek vices is almost as bad as hearing him try to actually speak Greek.'

'You don't mind?' Gus had tried to keep his voice as plucky as possible. Hard, given the circumstances.

Hugo had raised his eyebrows. ‘For God’s sake, Gus. Have you met me?’

‘Oh,’ was all Gus had been able to manage in response to that. ‘I… I didn’t know.’

‘Not all of us are such poncing idiots as to be caught in a raid on a molly house.’ Hugo’s voice was sarcastic. Gus didn’t care. ‘Well, I suppose we shall have to get you out of the country.’

And that had been that. Except, apparently, that fleeing the country was a lot more difficult than they’d have you believe. Teddy Wintringham was already in France, Hugo had reminded him; he’d passed from Gus’s mind almost as soon as he’d slipped across the border back when they’d all been at university. Hugo had sent him a letter to let him know to expect Gus. They’d packed, somehow — Gus didn’t know how he’d got through that last, nasty visit to his home, feeling altogether roguish and delirious as he’d slipped through the servants’ entrance and shoved some things (anything incriminating, any letters, anything irreplaceable) into a bag. Hugo had helped. He’d made no secret of the fact that he thought Gus a priceless fool — well, if he’d been careful enough to avoid Gus realising their shared inclination through years of acquaintance, he’d presumably earned the right to be a little judgemental — but he’d stayed there, and cursed and nodded and bribed and even laughed with Gus. And now here they were, in a dingy tavern in Dover, apparently having hit a dead end, because all of Hugo’s determination and wealth and aristocratic attitude couldn’t make it past the simple wall of Jack Miller.

It was a shame, and distinctly unfair stroke on the part of fate, Gus thought, that the man obstructing his flight had also happened to be the exact sort of handsome that made Gus’s heart kick around in his chest. Not at all helpful, and certainly not charming, and probably going to be the reason Gus was dragged to the dock, damn him, and on top of that handsome.

‘Right,’ Hugo said. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘Thank you, Hugo,’ Gus said. ‘For everything. I realise this is probably a bore.’

‘Wait until I’ve told you what the plan is, before you start thanking me,’ said Hugo. Then he added, robustly, ‘You’d do the same for any of us.’

‘If Algie ever needed to flee the country,’ Gus started, and let the sentence trail off into Hugo’s laughter. ‘Alright. What’s the plan? I’ll warn you, if it doesn’t involve me embarking in some dashing acts of heroism, it’s not worthy of me.’

‘It’s definitely worthy of some kind of story,’ Hugo told him. ‘I suppose there’s a certain heroism to fallen nobility? Not that I’d know, having never fallen.’

Gus refrained from telling Hugo that he was an ass. The man already knew. Then Hugo outlined his plan, and Gus told him after all.

***

Jack’s walk back from the tavern was not proving a good-tempered one. His land accommodation was limited to what the landlady had termed a ‘room’, but what might perhaps have been more accurately called a cupboard. It was only for a brief period, and Jack’s boatswain position aboard the _Isbjørn_ didn’t bring in nearly as much money as his overenthusiastic parents had apparently assumed it would, so he made do, and tried not to resent them for having shoved him into the merchant navy and then promptly dying before he could let them know how much he hated it.

 _The family footsteps_ , his mother had told him, and _Your father was in the Navy, wouldn’t he be proud_ , even if the Navy had been considerably less in need of cannon-fodder like Jack since the wars had ended, and the best he could manage was to be the working dog of a tedious company that needed tedious shipping done by men whose actual hard work they regarded as beneath them. Even if his father's time in the Navy had ended up with a wound that never healed, a pension that never came, and a dark agonized resentment towards life that had seemed to extend all the way to his son.

Meanwhile, the universities on the continent and at home were doing wonderful things. Sailing could be a tool for learning nowadays; exploration, new horizons, hopes. None of those things applied to Jack. All that he had was hard work and shipping crates, and nothing to do with any voyages of discovery. Dry goods, dry life, despite the constant slap of the waves; dry, itching eyes, and the sense of being trapped as the ship relayed incessantly back and forth to France. Nothing new to see.

Maybe that was what golden Gus had wanted, Jack reflected as he walked, indulging in bitterness because it was a comfortably tepid correspondent to his thoughts, like too much milk stirred into the ordinary tiredness of his existence. Maybe Gus wanted to see New Horizons, or to head off to some fancy French university, or to continue from France through Europe or Asia or Africa. He looked like an explorer, like a picture of one.

Even then, flooded with bitterness from their conversation, he couldn’t make himself believe anything so harmless. Gus was involved in something serious; nobody with his wealth would be in such a rush to leave the country otherwise.

Alternatively, maybe he was just in urgent need of some of the latest French fashions.

Jack was still thinking uncharitable thoughts about the man who’d called himself Gus Baxter when he rounded the corner and was instantly, blindingly, arrested by the evening newspaper crier.

SCANDAL, read the headlines, in prison-bar thick type. Lord’s Son Augustus Balfour Among Those Found During Raid At Molly House. Unnatural Offences.

Gus Baxter. Had he even tried. Jack found himself getting angry, feeling the irrational anger well up in him as he stood rooted to to the spot staring at the headline, because it was much easier to be exasperated with the man, to fix on that one tiny idiotic detail — bloody aristocracy, can’t even come up with a false name right — rather than giving any purchase to the horrible, sickening weight of fear and guilt pressing against the walls of his throat. He bought the newspaper, with a nod to the paper boy, feeling guilty all the while and attempting to stifle his nervousness because looking as sick as he felt at this kind of thing was a terrible idea. Then he carried it back to his lodgings, and read the account with the door locked.

It was ridiculous to feel responsible. Augustus Balfour didn't need his help. At least twenty people had been arrested in the raid, the papers said, probably most of them middling-poor like Jack was or worse off, trying to make ends meet by working in an assignation house, or else out looking for any scrap of beauty and companionship, a refuge against the grinding dirt and constant fear of everyday life. Twenty arrested, and here was Lord Augustus in a tavern in Dover, with his vicious-looking friend and his expensive clothes, fleeing the country because that was what the upper classes could afford to do, while people like Jack lived and died without the option.

Of course, Jack had the option to get away to France any time he liked. Which was where the problem lay.

He'd been closer to correct in thinking about Gus’s appearance at his table as an approach, he thought, with a slight rush of hysteria. No wonder the man had been so twitchy.

The cheap inn floorboards that Jack assumed to be present somewhere under grime beneath his feet were making noises of complaint, which drew Jack's attention to the fact that he was pacing. What he ought to be doing was packing his few belongings into his chest and preparing for tomorrow's departure. Instead here he was, pacing up and down the tiny room and still thinking about Gus Balfour, damn him.

English law couldn't touch him in France. Taking him on as a passenger in England, however, might be risky. Might endanger the ship; might not be right to bring Eriksson into it like that. There were other ships. Not everyone was as scrupulous at taking bribes as Jack. It was two days at least until the next packet’s departure for France, to Jack's knowledge, and with the papers crying scandal at every street corner, people were inclined to look harder at an expensive-looking lordling with the most pathetic attempt at an alias Jack had ever witnessed.

 _Damn_ it.

He turned on his heels, eking one final protest from the floorboards, as if a screech of moral disapproval, and headed back out down the street.

.

And then, to cap it all off, Lord Augustus Balfour didn't even have the decency to still be there.

The corner table was occupied by a group of raucous mill workers. The candles flickering wildly over the scene did nothing to help alleviate Jack's nausea. They'd been there; he hadn't dreamt it, even if he now felt distant and removed from the life around him, caught up in a sick haze of frustration with everyone and everything. He asked the barmaid, aware as he was doing so that he was drawing attention to the presence of a rich blonde man in her establishment, but unable to resist trying, and was met with the information that the two gentlemen had left not long after he had, and she had no idea where they had gone. The few coins he was able to offer didn't change her mind.

There were a thousand inns and lodging houses and dark corners that a man could disappear into. Someone looking like Gus might run into trouble even without people recognising him; his idiotic clothes were as good as an arrow pointed to his back reading Please Mug. Jack had no idea where to start looking for him.

It wasn't Jack's job to look for him. The dark-haired one, his rich friend, would be doing that. They had each others' backs. He would be fine. He hadn't really needed Jack.

Who was he kidding.

He returned to his lodgings to pack and fail to sleep, and try to suppress the sense that if anything were to happen to Augustus Balfour, it would feel like his fault.

***

The hold of the _Isbjørn_ was a distinctly uncomfortable place. Gus had never been happier to be anywhere.

It was wet, and a lot noisier than Gus would have expected, resounding with an an odd sort of booming rush, enveloping and muffling his senses as he sat among the dark shadows of boxes.

Getting on board had been challenging, to say the least. If they hadn't loaded the cargo on board the previous evening, he would almost certainly have been spotted. As it was, he'd managed, with an amount of shuffling and nerves, to propel himself over the ship's rail and down into the hold. He'd had the vague sense the whole time that Hugo was watching and laughing at him from the dock.

He had been almost out of his mind with anxiety and sleeplessness as he'd waited in the dark for the ship to start moving. Then there had been a jolt, and a lot of sounds of activity through the wood, and he’d felt the nerves blossom and radiate out over his skin, dissipating into a sudden wild elation. He wasn’t the disgraced son of a lord who hated him, here, wasn’t a model of nobility or a dutiful heir or any other thing; he was simply alive, nothing but beating heart and the harsh, simple, uncomfortable physicality of a body cramped into a small wet space and vividly, joyously, aware of being alive there.

He’d have to send a thank you note to Hugo. Now that it came to it, he had no complaints at all. The sheer glaring insanity of the plan hadn’t been in any way mitigated, but Gus didn’t care. Not only was he out of the country, but he caught himself grinning with the reckless, almost savage joy of his stupid adventure.

What could they do to him? What could any of them do to him now? He was aboard; even if they caught him, the ship was some merchant affair that would undoubtedly refuse to waste any time or money in turning back just to jettison an unexpected passenger. They’d throw him out in France, but since that was where he was going anyway, it could hardly matter. The crossing would be done within the day; it might even take as few as three hours; he’d heard of the packet sloops making it that fast in good weather. Then, with any luck, Teddy would be at the port in Calais, as would… and here he stalled. Some form of transportation back to Paris. Some plans for Gus’s new life. 

It was convenient, more than anything, when he was finally discovered. The ship couldn’t have been moving for more than an hour or two: barely long enough for Gus’s legs to get stiff, and he’d only seen one rat in the cargo hold in that entire time. The ship was moving rather frantically, back and forth and up and down, in a way that made Gus very glad that he was not accustomed to sea-sickness, and occasionally the crates among which he was huddled would slide or pitch alarmingly from side to side. All in all, though, stowing away was perhaps not all the adventure that authors made it out to be, and it was that thought that had him smiling still when he heard a scuffling of footsteps and an unintelligible, businesslike hollering. Then there was a thick, grey daylight bleeding around the edges of the crates as though they were leaking cloud. Gus had to screw his eyes up against the brightness.

'Bloody hell!'

The sailor who had discovered him had leapt backwards, slammed into a crate, and was now employing some creative cursing to his out-of-sight companion in an attempt to explain that there was a damn person in there. Gus shrugged his shoulders lightly, removing the cricks, and stood up. 'I suppose you ought to take me to your captain.’

.

The captain of the _Isbjørn_ was a man named Eriksson, a Norwegian, or so Gus and Hugo’s dockside reconnaissance had informed them. He was sitting in his cabin at his desk, and the hard sharp pebbles of his glance, peculiarly, filled Gus not with nerves but with confidence. He could deal with this man. Beside the captain was a rugged-looking man, not a sailor, looking from Eriksson to Gus with an expression of mild, enthusiastic curiosity. He was dressed in a large coat of stained furs. Not a sailor, then. Gus would have taken him for a merchant, if it weren't for the overall wildness of his appearance.

'So,' the captain said, briefly. 'You have stowed away on my ship.'

’My apologies for the inconvenience,’ Gus said, and was horribly aware of the educated English tone of his voice. 'I'm travelling to France, and yours was the next ship sailing. I'm on important business and couldn't wait for the packet.'

Eriksson gave a faint whuff of tired-sounding air. 'And your best plan to achieve this was to become a stowaway? To play at adventure stories?'

'I can pay for the passage, sir.' He'd dragged his bag, such as it was, up from the hold with him, and now bent to look for the money he'd brought with him. 'I spoke to your boatswain to request passage, but he was kind enough to inform me that the _Isbjørn_ was a cargo ship only, and that he could not allow me aboard. So I took matters into my own hands.’

The wild-looking merchant let out a rumble of laughter at that. Gus stood up a little straighter, and felt rather than saw Eriksson's faint tutting through his teeth.

’ _Ja_. Of course you did. The English gentleman, always getting what he wants. Bjørvik, could you find Mr Miller and bring him here?’

The furred man left the room, with another glance of great amusement, and Eriksson continued.

'I will take you to Calais, Mr…'

'Baxter,' Gus supplied, and felt the usual stab of discomfort at the dishonesty. 'Gus Baxter.'

'I will take you Calais, Mr Baxter, because it is easier than taking you back to England. The crossing should take another part of the day. Once we are there, on your own head be it.'

'I truly can pay for the passage. I would like to.' The amount of guineas Gus was holding out was at least ten times what the packet would have cost. Eriksson seemed to be visibly restraining himself from rolling his eyes.

'Five guineas,' he said, counting them out, and Gus let the rest clink back into his bag with a faint shameful sense of relief. He didn't know whether his father would make good on his threats to cut off his finances, or what he would do if he did.

The door to the cabin opened behind them. Gus felt a prickling, half-reluctance and half dizzying anticipation, as he turned to see Bjørvik returning, accompanied by Jack Miller.

Bjørvik had clearly not told him what was going on, because Jack stopped dead. His dark brow darkened, somehow, even further; Gus could almost see his expression crashing through the words _damn him_ letter by letter.

'Mr Miller,' Gus said. 'Pleasure to see you again.' Which was the truth, simply, and not intended as a jibe, but Jack stiffened, sharply.

'Of course,' he said. It seemed like an effort.

'I believe you two have already met,' Eriksson said. 'Professor, here is our stowaway. I am leaving Mr Baxter in your hands for the rest of the crossing. Unless you would rather go back and sit among the cargo in the hold. For the full experience, you understand.' This last was addressed to Gus, who realised belatedly that it counted as a joke. Jack Miller's eyes on him were arresting, seeming to slow down his ability to focus on anything else, as if the rest of the world was being processed through clear water.

'Captain,' Jack began. Then he met Eriksson's eye, and turned to Gus, visibly capitulating. 'All right. Come on, _Mr Baxter_. I'll show you around.'

.

They made their way through the ship, which seemed to Gus to be simultaneously rather smaller than he'd anticipated and much more difficult to navigate. Jack was walking behind him, directing, which was not very convenient, both since Gus had no idea where he was supposed to be being steered and also because he could feel Jack's eyes on the back of his neck. He stepped around him once, to open the door to another small cabin, into which he slung Gus's bag. Then out again, up some stairs, and into a blustery brightness that resolved itself with some blinking into the deck.

Jack navigated them over to a corner of the deck near the rail. He had shot out a hand when Gus had first stumbled at the feel of the deck moving under his feet, steadying him at the small of his back without saying a word, and he didn't remove it until they were both out of the way of the proceedings and looking out over the water.

When he did, his voice was stiff, a little awkward, a still counterbalance to the rocking of the ship. Gus couldn’t tell if it was to hold him up or push him away. He didn’t, he reminded himself, know anything about Jack Miller at all, except that he was apparently a very difficult person to get to know. He was beginning to think it was defensive.

‘There’s England.’ Jack’s hand, gone from his back, indicated the snail’s trail of glinting white at the horizon, almost entirely vanished in the sky and water. The sky was grey with cloud, but there didn’t seem to be an absence of light — rather, the daylight was being blown and rolled between the sky and the sea, like a tarnished ball.

The past few days seemed to catch up with Gus suddenly as the last hint of coast vanished from sight. It was silly, and he tried to keep his features carefully arranged, which made him more conscious than ever of his expression under Jack MIller’s glance. It wasn’t as though he had never been abroad. He’d even been to France before. Of course, he’d known where he’d been going then. More importantly, he’d had a sense of somewhere behind him that counted as Home, however small or confined or uninteresting it had seemed. Now, watching the horizon consume the last sight of England, he found himself gripped with a sudden panic that the country was not merely out of sight but no longer present, dissolved into the grey.

He shook himself, because the world didn’t revolve around him, and cast around for something to say. The expression on Jack Miller’s face was veering dangerously close to something resembling understanding.

‘She’s a lovely ship,’ Gus said, preemptively.

It worked to chase the hint of openness away from Jack’s face, anyway. His companion gave a low snorting sound. ‘She’s a brig. Two masts, square-rigged, look.’ Gus followed his glance. There were, indeed, two masts.

‘Two hundred tonnes,’ said Jack. ‘She’s a good enough ship. Getting a little bit old now, so she’s not as well shaped as newer craft, and she takes ten crew to sail her, which isn’t that many, but we’re not doing any long sailing, or going anywhere difficult, so.’ He closed his mouth again, suddenly, as if frustrated by his own outburst.

‘I won’t pretend to understand the difference any of that makes,’ Gus said, ‘but I’m glad to know it, and I think she’s grand. Are we too far out for gulls? I wouldn’t have thought so, but I haven’t seen any.’

‘Well, you have been below deck hiding in the hull,’ said Jack. ‘Which might explain it. Are you particularly interested in gulls?’

‘I’m interested in nature,’ Gus said. ‘Animals, plants. There’s so much diversity out there, it’s wonderful. I’ve always been interested in it — how creatures are arranged, how they behave. How they work. I keep a sketchbook.’ Jack was staring at him, he realised, brow furrowed. ‘I daresay it’s an unusual occupation.’

‘Calais is always swarming with gulls. You’re bound to get some then,’ Jack said. Then, after a pause, ‘I’m interested in how things work too. Not animals, so much, but. The things we can’t even see. Magnetic forces, or gravity, or the space between the stars. I think it’s human to want to know things.’

‘That’s fascinating,’ Gus said, and meant it.

His voice had been as steady as the wind would allow, but something about it, the sharpness of his curiosity maybe, broke through Jack’s distraction. His companion squared his shoulders.

‘I’m glad you think so,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t seem proper to be chatting like this about it, though. I should really be calling you _my lord_ right now.’

‘Oh, please don’t. I’d really rather you didn’t. I’m Gus to everyone.’ The realisation came a second too late to stop him from blurting out confirmation of his identity and making a fool of himself. Disgraced lord’s son begs sailor to call him by his first name. The idea of Jack Miller despising him on top of everything else made him feel sick. ‘You know who I am, then?’

‘I saw the newspapers.’ Jack’s voice was abrupt. ‘You needn’t worry, I’m not going to cause you any trouble. Any more trouble. Lord Augustus Balfour. Baxter was really the best you could come up with?’

The wind was buffeting around them, making it hard to stare, but Gus was almost certain — certain enough to bet, if he were betting at a table with Algie; betting at a table with Hugo required a significantly higher commitment — that the twist at the corner of Jack’s mouth was a smile.

‘Well, I suppose we can be introduced properly now,’ he said, and held out a hand towards Jack for the second time in as many days, and waited the solid ten seconds of decision-making and resentment Jack underwent before taking it. ‘Gus Balfour. I do mean it, that you should call me Gus, the full thing’s rather unbearable. And can I call you Jack?’

Jack’s hand felt very warm against the chill of the wind, and Gus felt the brush of calluses as he pulled it away again. ‘If you like,’ he said, more awkward than ungracious.

‘I should say thank you,’ Gus said. ‘For showing me around. And for not saying anything about my situation, or blowing my cover, such as it is.’

‘Don’t,’ Jack said. His voice seized around the word. ‘I’m sorry.’

Well, that was unexpected. Jack was staring determinedly at their hands, side by side on the rail, Gus’s chilled and out of place and bracing for balance, Jack’s gripping so hard as to make the knuckles flare white. He looked like he was fighting with something. Gus, for the life of him, couldn’t have said what or why. ‘ _You’re_ sorry?’

‘Yes, I am. I shouldn’t have refused you passage. If it helps, I thought you were involved in something terribly illegal.’

‘Technically,’ Gus began, because he couldn’t help himself. Jack cut him off.

‘I went back to look for you, when I saw the paper. You were gone when I got there.’

‘I don’t blame you for leaving.’ Gus tried to inject as much understanding into his voice as possible. ‘I’m sure anyone in your position would have done the same. It wasn’t one of my more successful approaches.’

Next to him, Jack twitched. ‘I’m not held to some — some _different standard_ than you are. Believe it or not, the lower classes can tell right from wrong too, so don’t try to act as though I couldn’t have known any better. I shouldn’t have turned you away. My _position_ has nothing to do with it.’

Gus held up his hands from the rail in a gesture of surrender, absurdly charmed. The wind, or the emotion, had whipped a faint dark glow into Jack’s cheeks, and he was looking at Gus now, albeit glaring. ‘That’s not what I meant. I was clearly lying to you, and it was an imposition. That’s all I meant.’

‘You wouldn’t expect me to help you,’ Jack clarified, sounding offended by it, for some reason.

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Gus said, mystified. ‘You don’t know me, and you’re not obliged to put yourself at risk for me. Frankly, I should think it appalling entitled if I demanded you should. I would like to be able to trust and rely on you, but trusting and relying on strangers is — imprudent, in people of my disposition.’

Jack looked away for a second. When he looked back, the tension was mostly gone from his jaw, although the high colour in his cheeks remained. ‘All right. I guess I should apologise again.’

‘There’s nothing to apologise for in the first instance,’ Gus said. ‘I’m beginning to suspect that you might be the most sensitive man I’ve ever met.’ He spared Jack the trial of having to find a response that avoided sounding defensive, risking a brief brush of his hand against the side of Jack’s before turning to look towards the front of the ship. ‘How long until France?’

***

How long until France, in Jack’s opinion, was both too excruciatingly long and could never be long enough. He’d shown Gus around the rest of the ship, which had not taken long, since she was a smallish craft, and had tried to keep himself from blathering facts the whole way round, because there was nothing less impressive than chasing someone’s approval like a bouncing puppy, or showing off with tidbits about mast lengths and keel depth. It would have been easier if Gus had been less interested. As it was, his summer blue eyes had met Jack’s with interest, and he’d asked questions as they toured around. He seemed to prefer conversation; at least, whenever a lull fell, his face seemed to shutter slightly. Jack didn’t know how to offer him comfort, because he didn’t know how the upper classes did so, and the idea of slapping anyone’s shoulder and telling them to buck up was untenable. Any clumsy attempt of Jack’s would most likely just offend Gus. So he did what he could, and kept talking, spouting nonsense about the ship and the cargo and whatever else passed through his head, and tried to keep that emptiness from settling about Gus’s face.

Then the wind had picked up and his actual responsibilities had called, and he’d led Gus back to join his luggage in Jack’s berth, thinking all the while, Jack’s berth, his bunk, his few things, and Gus was bound to realise that at some point. The idea of Gus noticing how small and empty and impersonal Jack’s space was painful, but unavoidable, so he tried to crush down the burning tide of embarrassment, and propelled Gus through the ship with a selfish hand at the small of his back, because they had at most a few hours left before making berth at Calais, and Jack would take what he could get. Besides, it was just a room on a ship to him. There was no reason that Gus Balfour — beautiful, interested, kind, lively Gus Balfour; lord’s son Gus Balfour — should take any notice of it as anything beyond yet another uncomfortable curiosity, a soon-forgotten segment of his flight.

Which meant, of course, that as soon as they got back to Jack’s cabin, Gus took an interested look around and said, ‘This is your cabin, isn’t it? I thought it might be when we dropped off the luggage.’

‘You can stay below here. It shouldn’t be that long to Calais. We’d have been there already, but we’ve had to be tacking all the way, and the ship doesn’t deal too well with headwinds.’ Jesus, Jack.

‘Trying to keep me out of the way?’ Gus was leaning against Jack’s berth, and smiling at him, and it was as if he could see nothing but that smile, tired but genuine. There was a rush of infuriating blood pounding about his ears. He turned, abruptly aware that he’d been standing for too long, as if by the sudden movement he could shake Gus out of his eyes. It didn’t work.

‘Jack,’ Gus said, and Jack stopped dead halfway through turning towards the door. Gus’s hand brushed against his wrist, and Jack’s pulse did its best to spike its way out through his skin and into Gus’s fingers.

‘Yes?’ Hoarse, rusted, uncomfortable.

‘Thank you.’ Jack heard the smile in Gus’s voice as clearly as if he could see it. Then the touch dropped away, and Jack left the cabin, trying his best to wish that Gus Balfour had been left in England.

.

The remainder of the crossing was irksome; the weather was inconvenient without being diverting, and nothing could distract him from the thought of Gus in his cabin below. As they drew in to Calais and began the customs process, Bjørvik came to find him in the hold. The Norwegian was nothing to do with the merchant company that owned the ship, and, not coincidentally, one of a very few people aboard whose company Jack genuinely enjoyed. He was, from what Jack had been able to gather, a connection of Eriksson’s; a trapper, brought along by Eriksson on some vague pretense of establishing a trade in furs.

He had sought out Jack in the hold now, nominally for some question about the customs processes. Jack was familiar enough with his routine by now to know that his real goal was a spell of time in the company of someone almost as unused to conversation as he himself was. Jack, in return, valued his company for the stories he could tell of life in the far north, and for the simple fact of human connection.

‘Nearly there now, Mr Jack,’ was Bjørvik’s opening remark.

‘Yes, yes. We are. What do you plan to do when we arrive?’

Bjørvik gave a small shrug. ‘Reunite with dogs. Head back north.’

‘You’re not staying with the _Isbjørn_? I thought you and Eriksson were working on something.’

At that, Bjørvik laughed. ‘No, no. He wants me to expand, to trade. I would prefer to stay on land. But he is a good man. I travel with him from time to time. It is good to have company.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

‘And you?’ Bjørvik’s voice was shrewd. ‘And your friend, Mr Gus? What will he and you do?’

Jack paused, hovering about the boxes of cargo. ‘Gus? I don’t know. We’re not — he’s not ‘my’ friend. He will have friends waiting for him at the port, I believe. And I go on as normal.’ And Jack would continue the work that he hated, the back and forth of mundane toil, and Gus Balfour would be able to move on with his life, and forget all about the man who had nearly cost him his chance at leaving the country.

‘Ah,’ said Bjørvik. ‘Good.’

‘Is it?’ Jack’s mouth said, surprised, before his brain could catch up. Bjørvik gave him an odd look, almost complacent.

‘You were not expecting me to say that,’ he told him. ‘Which, perhaps, should tell you something. Jack, my friend, you do not look happy. If merely talking about a thing gives you pain, perhaps you should not do it. I spend a lot of time alone, but sometimes I come here, to sail with Eriksson or to keep company. Routine helps fight off the darkness, but so do people, so does change. You and Mr Gus? Both of you seem to me to be ready for a change.’

***

Gus’s friend Teddy was not in Calais.

Jack had helped Gus to carry his luggage off the ship and into port, which had meant a painful interval of telling himself that there was no reason at all he was clinging to the straps of Gus’s one bag (one, that Gus could easily have carried himself), and that he wasn’t attempting to eke out the last of his time with Gus. The dock was busy, overwhelmed with the constant rumour of shouts and whistles, the noise churning around them mingling with the shrieking of the gulls. Gus had, in fact, paused to watch them diving, his upturned face alight despite the chaos around him, and Jack had paused next to him and watched him in turn. There were dark rings under his eyes. It had taken them five hours, more or less, to reach Calais, but Gus, with his golden hair alternately tousled and flattened by the wind, and his rumpled clothes stained with damp from the hold, looked as though he’d been travelling for days. He looked determined, resolved. If he was nervous about whatever new life France would have to offer him, he didn’t show it.

At some point, Jack knew, he should tell Gus what he’d done. It was none of Gus’s business, of course, in the same way that Gus was none of Jack’s business. He wanted to see how Gus would react, whether he’d be interested. It was Jack’s affair, and nothing to do with Gus, which meant that there was nothing keeping him from mentioning it. He held onto it anyway, cowardly, clinging to the whisper of a chance that it might become relevant.

He’d tell him later. Regardless of what else happened.

They had found a corner of the dock out of the ordinary flow of traffic, and Gus had made motions with his hands indicating a request for his baggage back, which Jack had pretended not to understand. ‘What now?’ he’d asked, and Gus had frowned slightly, and admitted he didn’t know.

‘Hugo sent a message to Teddy before we left, letting him know I was coming. So provided the letter reached him, he should be here. Or be on his way. He knows where to find me, anyway.’

 _Provided he’s decided to come at such short notice, this friend you haven’t seen in ten years_ , Jack did not add, because there were already enough provideds in Gus’s own speech to indicate that he was aware of just how precarious his position was. ‘I’ll wait with you,’ he’d said instead.

Gus frowned at him. ‘You really don’t have to, Jack. You’ve done more than enough for me already.’

‘I know I don’t have to.’ Which had shut Gus’s protestations up as effectively as if Jack had managed to articulate any part of what he was actually feeling, and earned him a grateful smile.

After a while, Gus, because _obviously_ he spoke French, had gone and inquired at the dock office, and then at the nearest taverns, and had returned with more lines creasing his brow. ‘A letter from Teddy. Says he’s had a bereavement, and can’t be out of town right now, so I’m to get to him as best I can. I’ve got his Paris address, but it might be a bit late to start for Paris today, even if I could find transport. I should find a room for the night, and see if I can find a diligence in the morning.’ 

So, there they had it. Gus’s friend Teddy was not in Calais, or not to be found by Gus, which amounted to the same thing, and something inside Jack was close to having a temper tantrum.

He was angry at Gus’s rich friends, shipping him around the world like a parcel, leaving him struggle along alone, not asking for help because that wasn’t what Gus would do. He wanted to grab hold of Gus’s arm, to feed the voice inside him that was imploring _don’t go, stay with me_. Grabbing Gus’s arm would have meant relinquishing his hold on Gus’s bag, so he didn’t.

Could it really only have been yesterday that he’d been trying his best to escape Gus at a Dover tavern? His life would be so much easier if he was trying to escape Gus now, if he was able to disentangle him from this new possessive feeling, the wild pitching of desperation and joy and protectiveness. Had he been so lonely that his soul had decided to fling itself at the first person to show any interest in talking to him? No, it was Gus, Gus specifically, that Jack’s pathetic heart had gone and latched onto.

He didn’t say _don’t leave_ , and he didn’t grab Gus’s arm. He did, however, hitch Gus’s bag back up, and tell him, in a tone that he hoped sounded authoritative rather than plaintive, ‘I need to find a room too. Come on.’

.

The room they found was comfortable, and private, and larger than anything Jack would have afforded on his own money. It did, however, only have one bed. They were travelling companions, not in need of luxury, and altogether respectable; the inn was busy and making the most of its available space; there was some cruel god playing tricks on Jack specifically.

They left their things, Gus’s luggage and Jack’s chest, and ate downstairs in the inn, Jack paying for the food because Gus had paid for the room. They talked about naturalism, about the things that Gus had seen and sketched and given the same devastating attention he was giving Jack now. Gus laughed at him, once or twice, not a derisive laughter but a friendly form of teasing, that made Jack feel as though he was being split open and seen, radiated all over with warmth. He sniped back, a comment about Gus’s tragic attempt to pass for inconspicuous, lower-class Gus Baxter, and had watched as Gus responded not by being offended but with pure delight. The minutes were sliding by, golden, and all the while Jack kept swallowing down surges of irrational terror, fighting to ignore its banging against his ribcage. _He’s going tomorrow._

The bedroom was dark when they made it up, lit only by the glow of embers in the grate. Jack dug his nightshirt out of his trunk as quickly as possible, ignoring Gus, because that was what traveling companions did. Gus’s own preparations for bed were slower, shadowy. The mattress moved to accommodate him, and Jack was aware, painfully, of Gus’s warmth bleeding through the cold sheets towards him, radiating through the dark hushed air. Neither of them spoke.

‘What,’ started Jack, softly, and felt a startled, half-laughing exhale from Gus, and realised that Gus was facing him, that his shadowed face was closer to Jack’s than he’d thought. They were breathing the same air. ‘Sorry,’ Jack muttered, and moved his mouth carefully, carefully, in that sacred small space between them, forming the words. ‘What will you do in Paris?’

One breath. Two.

‘I don’t know,’ Gus admitted. His voice sounded more vulnerable than it had on the street, simpler. Maybe, Jack hoped with a vicious rush of selfish hope, he would trust Jack now. Maybe it was just easier to speak to the darkness.

‘I suppose I’ll find a job,’ Gus said. ‘I’ll have to go to the bank, find out if my family really has cut me off. But even if they have, I want to find something I can do for myself. To make some sort of impact. I haven’t done much of a job of it so far, but I’d like to start.’

Jack could make out the gleam of Gus’s eyes now, as his own adjusted to the dark of the room. The shadows at the bridge of his nose, the outline of his cheek, rough with the journey’s hint of stubble. His mouth. There were a thousand inarticulate thoughts filling his throat like the tide. The one that made it out, when he opened his mouth again, cautiously, was ‘Can I help?’

‘You already have.’ Gus shifted slightly next to him. ‘It’s something out of all of this. If I’d never had to flee the country, I’d never have got to spend time with you. Whatever else, I’m grateful for that. You’ve been marvellous.’ Jack could _feel_ Gus’s eyes on him in the dim room, the warm whisper of his breath. ‘You’re marvellous.’ 

‘Oh, god. Gus.’ It was all he could manage to say. ‘I don’t want you to leave.’

Another rush of warmth. The steady gentleness of Gus’s voice was run through with a shudder. Quietly. ‘What do you want?’

Jack moved, then, and was fiercely grateful as their lips met that Gus had been moving too, that he had ‘known’, must have known. They met halfway, almost blindly, the space between them flooded with the warmth and exultation of touch, of the feeling of Gus’s lips against his, his cheek, his jaw, his mouth.

‘Jack,’ said Gus. There was laughter in his voice, and wonder, and Jack felt fingers brush his cheek.

‘I want,’ Jack started, and then stopped. Another rush of breath. ‘I want you to stay. Or to stay with you. I don’t care. But I don’t want to never see you again, and if you leave —’

There was the suggestion of a frown on Gus’s shadowed face, but his fingers were still brushing Jack’s cheek. When he spoke, his voice was serious.‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ Breathe, Jack.

‘I don’t see how I can avoid leaving,’ Gus was saying. His voice was measured again, deliberately light. ‘I can’t go back to England, and wherever I stay on land, you’ll only be passing by. Unless you’ve had another thought about allowing me to join as a sailor?’

Well, if Jack was ever going to tell him, now was the time. ‘I’ve left the _Isbjørn_. Handed in my notice.’

‘You’ve… Jack, what?’ Gus’s voice was concerned. ‘I don’t want you to give up your income for me.’

‘It’s not just for you.’ Jack let a little humour into his voice at that, tried to let the strength of his affection show; Gus, solemnly taking the responsibility of being the centre of the world on his shoulders. Of course, Jack had taken approximately twenty-four hours to spin into orbit around him, so he supposed he couldn’t really talk. It was out now. He might as well give it the best shot he had. ‘I hated the job. Everything you were saying about wanting to _do_ something — I want that too. I want to feel like I’m making a difference. When you asked me about magnetic forces? That was the first time I’ve talked to another person about something I’m interested in, truly interested in, for years.’

‘In that case, I’m glad.’ Jack felt Gus move, and then the brush of another kiss. ‘But what are we going to do?’

‘We can talk about it tomorrow,’ Jack said. There must have been a dash too much of something in the _tomorrow_ , a hint of desperation leaking through, because Gus moved to kiss him again almost immediately, smiling against him, one incredulous hand shifting to run along his shoulder. ‘I don’t know either. You don’t have to... _we_ don’t have to decide right now. I don’t care. Just so long as we can talk about it. Decide together. If you want that.’

‘Jack, you idiot, of course I want that. I promise.’ Gus sounded… sincere. Relieved. Happy, there, with Jack, willing to be with him. Jack didn’t know if he’d ever be able to process that. He didn’t know if they’d have an ever for him to try. But, at the very least, they’d have tomorrow. 

Bjørvik had been right. It was time for a change.

**Author's Note:**

> hang out with me on tumblr @ [mozalieri](https://mozalieri.tumblr.com)!


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